The Singers of Nevya (88 page)

“You’re going to be sorry about this, Carver,” the courier said.

There was a moment of silence. When he spoke again, Cho’s voice was light once more. “You have it wrong. The regrets will be yours, and your masters’, if they don’t listen to me.”

“Never!”

Footsteps sounded across the floor, and a door banged against the wall, and again in the doorjamb. Sook ran back to her window to see the courier march across the dappled courtyard, past the two guards and into the light of the
quiru
. The two younger Cantors rose to meet him, but the Magister and the senior Cantor remained in their chairs.

A knock at her door heralded the arrival of Bree, supper tray in hand.

“Bree! Did you hear all that? What’s going to happen?”

“You’d better just keep out of it,” Bree said dourly. “And that’s what I plan to do, too.”

“But how can you? You’re a part of it!”

The Singer’s lips pressed into a thin line. She set the tray down and pointed to the bowl and the cup on it. “Look at that!” she said in a low tone. “
Caeru
stew, tea. No fruit, no grain, no bread. We can’t work, we can’t travel, we can’t eat. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be.”

Sook came closer to Bree, leaning forward to look up into her eyes. “Bree–you can fight back. We all can. You can help, talk to the others . . .”

Bree turned her face away. “Ship knows I’m in it now, and of my own will, too. I was all right with it—until Yul.”

“But now?” Sook prompted her.

“Never mind. Eat your meal. I’ll get the tray later.”

Sook sat down on the bed and picked up her spoon. The stew was Mura’s usual rich brown, and it smelled as spicy as ever, but she could see without touching it that it was only meat and broth. It didn’t appeal to her. “I’m not hungry,” she said.

“Best eat it anyway,” Bree said from the door. “It’s all there is.”

Sook said, “Bree . . . are you sure you don’t want to—”

Bree threw up her hand. “Don’t even say it,” she said. “A taste of his—discipline, he calls it—was enough for me, that day in the carvery. You don’t know what it’s like.”

Sook sat with her hand in her lap, holding the spoon. “Tell me, then. What does he do?”

Bree leaned the back of her head against the door and closed her eyes. She said grimly, “It’s like having your brains cut apart. It’s like dying, only you’re afraid you won’t die and it’ll go on forever. It’s more than losing your Gift, which is bad enough; it’s like losing yourself.”

Sook shivered. “I’m sorry, Bree. I guess I’ll never really understand.”

“Spirit willing, you won’t. Now you eat your stew, and I’ll come back later.”

But when she had left, Sook ignored the tray and went back to the window. The Housemen in the
quiru
were serving another meal to their Magister and the three Cantors. Sook was sure the Magister was drinking wine. It had been a long time since she tasted wine. Even worse, she knew it had been a long time since any of the itinerants had had any, and there was the Magister of Lamdon drinking it right in front of them.

She stood with her hands on either side of the window, and pointed her small chin at the fat man. “Magister or no,” she muttered, “you’re a great fool!”

Sook was wakeful when the rest of the House was bedding down. Her forced inactivity made it hard to sleep at night. She went back to the window seat when her meal tray had been removed to watch darkness fall over the Timberlands, and the stars come to life above the Continent. She watched as the Housemen beyond the courtyard fed their
hruss
, laid out the bedfurs, banked the cookfire. Thus it was that she saw Mura try to reach Lamdon’s
quiru
.

It seemed she had slipped out through the stable doors and walked around the House to the courtyard. She crept along the edge of Soren’s ragged
quiru
, and started toward Lamdon’s bright one.

The guards who had stood watch all day were already in their bedfurs, and two new ones had replaced them. The other Housemen had gone to bed as well, leaving the Magister and the three Cantors sitting around the table. Mura was a slow-moving figure heavily muffled in borrowed furs. As she drew near the light, one of the younger Cantors stood to meet her. He came to the edge of the
quiru
and reached out of the warmth, stretching his hand into the cold and dark.

Before their fingers could touch, he reeled and fell back on his heels. He tripped over a stool and went down on the packed snow, where he lay without moving. The other Cantor ran to kneel beside him, then turned an ashen face, mouth working, up to the House.

Sook looked down to see that the double doors beneath her stood open to the night. Cho was on the steps, just at the edge of Soren’s fragmented light. He raised his long arm, pointing and calling something out into the courtyard. Mura whirled, trapped in the darkness between the two
quiru
.

Magister Gowan came to his feet, with Cantor Abram beside him. He made a gesture, and one of the Housemen snatched up his heavy furs and ran, pulling them on as he went, toward Mura. Sook found that her knuckle was between her teeth, and she was biting on it, hard. She watched helplessly as Cantor Abram pressed his hands to his temples and bent double, and the other Cantor, the one kneeling by his colleague, cried out and slumped forward. Cho shouted again.

The Magister called out sharply and the Houseman on his way to Mura stopped in confusion. He looked from his Magister to Cho, taking in the condition of the Singers, waiting in the darkness for interminable moments for some decision. Sook knew there was no decision to be made. There was no choice. Without their Singers, they were all dead. Even the great Magister of Lamdon could not keep himself warm in the deep cold. Cho loomed in the open doorway, both arms out, head tipped back so Sook could see the curve of his long nose.

The Houseman backed away from Mura, taking slow and reluctant steps until he was within the circle of the
quiru’s
warmth. Cho lowered his arms, and Cantor Abram straightened, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. Magister Gowan shouted something, but there was no answer. The double doors below Sook were closing.

Cho meant to leave Mura in the courtyard, in the cold. He had attacked the Singers of Lamdon, and he would do it again if they tried to help her. Mura had become his demonstration, his sacrifice. With a cry of fury, Sook ran to her door.

No one had forgotten this time. The door to her bedroom was secure, the wooden bolt driven home in its socket, turned and braced in the locking slot. She couldn’t get out.

Back she flew to the window, pounding on the limeglass with her fist. “Mura!” she shrieked. “Mura! Run to the stables, go to the stables!”

It was impossible for Mura to hear her, but she looked up at the window, and Sook saw the faint flutter of her eyes. She was already feeling the cold. Sook gestured wildly, pointing, to indicate that Mura should go back the way she had come, try the stable door.

The cook lifted and spread her hands. She mouthed, “Too late.” She touched her heart, once, and then raised her fingers to Sook. She was saying goodbye.

“Mura, no! Try!” Sook screamed. She went on screaming until her throat ached, and the itinerants coming into the main room of the apartment banged on her door and demanded quiet. She ignored them, calling to Mura until her voice grew hoarse. Then she sobbed, kneeling on the window seat with her chin on her hand, staring at the macabre scene.

Mura walked slowly to the broad steps of the House. She seated herself on them, and drew the furs about her. Her back was straight, her head up. Sook could imagine the glare she turned on the Lamdon contingent. They stared in horror at the savagery of Cho’s reprisal.

Even Sook’s tears spent themselves eventually, but still she knelt at the window.

The end was not long in coming. Mura’s rigid back curved slightly. She slumped, almost imperceptibly, within the inadequate shelter of the
caeru
furs. Irrelevantly, Sook wondered whose they were. They belonged to the stableman, perhaps, or to one of the Housemen who serviced the waste drop. They would come back into the House, those furs, and their owner would always know that Mura had died in them, frozen to death in the deep cold only a few steps from warmth and safety. Sook felt as if the cold had reached right inside the House, into her own breast. It made her heart ache unbearably.

Hours later, when all hope that Mura might have survived was past, Sook heard the outer door of the apartment open and close, and steps pass by as Cho and someone with him went into his bedroom. Not long after came Sook heard the sound of a girl’s voice. She wasn’t sure if it was Nori or some other Housewoman.

She rubbed the last vestiges of tears from her cheeks and whispered promises to herself. “I won’t cry again,” she vowed. “Not one more tear. He’ll pay for this, Mura, for you and for Yul. I swear by the Ship!”

Sook kept vigil at her window through the night, her eyes and throat as dry as stone. She gazed down at the figure of Mura, slumped on the steps, and at the impotent figures of Magister Gowan and his Cantors. Over and over, through the long hours, she prayed for Zakri to come.

Chapter Twenty-one

Mreen leaned against Sira’s back as they rode, lulled to drowsiness by the
hruss’s
swinging gait. None of the travelers had spoken for hours. Only the rustle of an intermittent breeze stirring the irontree branches sounded in the silence. It was late in the afternoon when a faint grating broke the monotony. Sira lift her head and thrust back her hood.

She turned her head right, and then left, straining to hear it again. There—it was a scuffing, a scraping sound, the sound of bone runners sliding over stone left bare by the worn snow of late winter. Mreen wriggled, awakened by Sira’s sudden tension.

Do you hear it, Mreen?

The little girl pushed her own furs away from her ears, but she shook her head.

Riders
, Sira sent.
Many hruss, and pukuru
. She called to the others, “A traveling party is ahead of us, a big one—coming this way, I think.”

Zakri put his hood back to listen. He shook his head. “I will take your word for it.”

Theo reined in, dropping back until all of them were within three arms’ length of one another. “Until we know who they are, better to ride close.” He spoke calmly, but Sira heard the undertone in his voice, the slight huskiness. “Sira and Mreen, stay in the center,” he directed. “Berk, there, to Sira’s right. Zakri on the left.”

I hear them now
, Mreen sent. She tightened her arms around Sira’s waist. Sira would have liked to reassure her, but it was clear the child was aware that, soon or late, they were riding into danger. She found Mreen’s small hand, almost lost in the thick furs, and stroked it.

I am not afraid
, Mreen sent stoutly.

No, I know you are not,
Sira answered.
You are as brave as your stepsister.

Do you mean Trisa? Is Trisa brave?

Sira patted her hand.
Indeed she is. Do you not know the story?

Tell me!

And so as they rode forward, unsure of who was coming toward them, Sira distracted Mreen with the tale of Trisa’s misery at Conservatory, her determination to run away, and her final success in accomplishing it. Mreen listened, sighing at Zakri’s and Berk’s part in the adventure.

When Sira finished the tale, Mreen sent,
Trisa was brave, but she was so silly! Who would want to leave Conservatory? It is the best place to be on the whole Continent!

For you and for me, it is. But what is true for one Singer is not always true for another.

Theo spoke aloud, keeping his voice low. “Here they are.” They all lifted their eyes to the approaching riders.

“Ship and stars!” Berk muttered. “Somebody’s emptied their stables right out.”

“Not quite,” Zakri murmured. “Look who rides with them! Only one man I know of could fill furs that size. And the senior Cantor himself, out of Lamdon at last. The capital House has
hruss
and Singers to spare.”

“So,” Theo said. “Do they have him?”

Zakri scanned the riders. “I do not see him,” he said. “But there is a man in a litter, there on the
pukuru
.” He gestured to the left with his chin, keeping his hands on his reins. “I cannot see his face.” He added in an urgent undertone, “Shield yourselves, and carefully. I will extend my shields around Mreen.”

Mreen protested energetically.
I am shielded already!

Good
, Zakri sent back.
Then you will be twice protected.

The man at the head of Lamdon’s entourage kicked his
hruss
into a lumbering trot, hurrying toward them. He lifted his hand, and called out when he was within range. “Greetings from Magister Gowan v’Lamdon! What travelers are you?”

Theo raised his own hand, and answered, “Theo v’Observatory.”

Zakri nodded approval of his caution. Theo hardly looked like a Cantor. His hair curled at his nape, cropped like an itinerant’s, and his shoulders bulked inside his
caeru
furs. He looked like an itinerant.

The Lamdon man drew closer now, and his
hruss
slowed its heavy gait, jolting to a halt a few steps from Theo. The rest stopped too, facing him. Sira’s and Zakri’s shields were linked with Mreen’s, twined together like the interlocking roots of the forest. Theo’s own defenses stretched around them all, not precise, delicate Conservatory shielding but his own stubborn, stony wall of protection, toughened by experience. Sira felt Zakri’s probe reach out past that barricade to touch the Lamdon rider’s mind.

No Gift in this one,
he sent, and they all relaxed a bit.

“Theo v’Observatory?” repeated the rider. He looked them over. “I’ve never met anyone from Observatory. I’ve heard some stories.”

Theo grinned. “I probably told most of them,” he said. He shifted in his saddle, sitting sideways with one foot dangling free of the stirrup, ready to chat. “You say you have Magister Gowan coming up there behind you?”

“So I do, and Cantor Abram to boot. We’ve had a nasty time of it at Soren.”